What is DevOps? And How Does it Work?
DevOps combines cultural principles, practices, and tools to increase an enterprise’s ability to provide solutions and services at high velocity. It helps in developing and improving products faster than an organization using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes. This speed builds a competitive edge to the companies so that they can provide solutions with higher quality and perform more effectively in the market.
In the delivery pipeline for the DevOps solutions, organizations would first conceptualize and build the product. Then, the solutions would undergo rigorous testing. The testing mechanism depends on the kind of framework –Agile or Waterfall – that organizations have adopted. The delivery pipeline ends with delivering the product to the customer. From the customer end, towards the organizations, the feedback mechanism would include monitoring and planning the product. The frequency for the feedback would vary depending on the policy of project divisions that the company has chosen.
The DevOps Model
Under a DevOps model, the teams that take care of development and operations no longer work in silos or different verticals. Depending on the need of the project, these two teams may be merged into a single team. In such teams, engineers would be involved throughout the lifecycle of the product. Instead of handing the activities to operations after a point, engineers would take care of development, testing, deployment, and operations while developing a range of skills that are not limited to the activities or functions of a single team
Some DevOps include quality assurance and security teams as well. Integrating development and operations with security and quality makes the project, and thereby, the enterprise, leaner. When security becomes the primary focus of a DevOps team, it might sometimes be referred to as DevSecOps.
These teams employ techniques and methods that automate processes that create bottlenecks in the project pipeline. Using complete technology stack and tooling helps these teams operate and develop applications quickly, while sustainably and reliably scaling them. These tools and processes also help engineers accomplish tasks independently, whether it is deploying the code or creating provisioning infrastructure. These tasks eliminate the dependencies on other teams and increase the team’s velocity.
DevOps employees the following best practices
- Continuous Integration
- Continuous Delivery
- Microservices
- Infrastructure as Code
- Monitoring and Logging
- Communication and Collaboration
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What is the AWS DevOps Engineer Role, and is it Right for You?
AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional certification is for individuals who have at least two years of experience provisioning, operating, and managing AWS environments. AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional validates the following skills.
- Deploy and manage continuous delivery systems on AWS
- Implement and automate security controls, governance processes, and compliance validation
- Define and deploy monitoring, metrics, and logging systems on AWS
- Implement systems that are highly available, scalable, fault-tolerant, and self-healing on the AWS platform
- Design, manage, and maintain tools to automate operational processes.
What are the Eligibility Criteria for AWS DevOps Engineer – Professional Certification?
Previously AWS required completion of the previous certification to complete the next one. The DevOps certifications that AWS Offers, from the foundational level, are
- AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner – Foundational level Certification
- AWS Certified SysOps Administrator and AWS Certified Developer – Associate Level Certification
- AWS Certified DevOps Engineer – Professional Level Certification
However, AWS has since removed the requirement that professionals first acquire the certifications at the previous level. This means individuals can now get certifications depending on their job requirements and the extent of application of the certification knowledge. That removes any eligibility criteria for every level of certification. However, AWS does recommend some experience and knowledge that individuals must gain to adjust well and gain the most out of the certification
AWS recommends that every individual attempting professional level exams have at least two years of comprehensive experience designing, operating, and troubleshooting solutions using the AWS Cloud. A list of services you need to be aware of while preparing for the exam is
- AWS Config
- AWS Managed Services
- AWS Step functions
- AWS Service Catalogue
- AWS Trusted Advisor
- AWS Macie
- AWS GuardDuty
- AWS Inspector
- AWS CloudSearch (referred to as CS in the exam)
- AWS Server Migration Service (referred to as SMS in the exam)
- AWS DirectConnect
- AWS Organisations
- AWS Quick Insight
According to AWS, the required experience and knowledge are
- Experience developing code in at least one high-level programming language
- Experience building highly automated infrastructures
- Experience administering operating systems
- Understanding of modern development and operations processes and methodologies
Everything About the AWS DevOps Certification – Exam, Process, and Cost
The exam is in a multiple-choice format. It contains both single answers and multiple answers. The testing can be at a center or in an online proctored fashion. AWS’s portal conducts the exam so that individuals can schedule and manage their exams. Individuals have 180 minutes to appear for the exam. The exam is conducted on a scaled score between 1 and 1000. The average pass score on the scaled system is 750.
There will be 75 questions that measure your knowledge of cloud and experience in deploying scalable, sustainable, fault-tolerant, and reliable systems. The questions are usually scenario-based questions and problem-based ones for which you have to provide solutions. The exam costs 300 USD, while the practice exam costs 40 USD. The exam is available in English, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese
The average salary for DevOps engineers lies between 85000 USD and 120000 USD. The salary depends on the location, the job description, and the experience that an individual has in the role
Where to Get Online Resources for the Exam?
AWS website has access to various study guides, practice exams, previous exam questions. It also offers an exam guide, learning paths, white papers, and FAQs to get a better understanding of the DevOps exam. It also provides exam readiness training so individuals can prepare themselves for the exam. In addition to this, several training providers like Udemy, Edureka, Plural Sight, Simpli Learn all offer training programs for the certification.
